El lado oscuro de los CIEES

Una crítica a los Comités Interinstitucionales para la Evaluación de la Educación Superior

Abstract

Inter-institutional post-secondary education evaluation committees (CIEES) were introduced to Mexico in 1992 as a peer evaluation tool to support continuous improvement in post-secondary education in Mexico. Ten years later, their inherent problems have grown evident, exemplified by the Agricultural Sciences Committee. These problems raise questions about the role that universities ought to play in Mexico today. Among other factors, they have no legal basis whatsoever, giving rise to their discretional nature. They are an integral part of a government and pro-business agenda contributing to a unilateral view of Mexico’s problems; in this example, those related to rural issues. This unilateral point of view translates into the creation of a standard or parameter against which all degree programs in Mexico are evaluated; a single, nation-wide criterion clinging to a future vision of the agricultural professions as inherently linked to the globalization of Mexican farming. Its future, and those of agricultural graduates, are in the service of huge foreign companies. Any schools which do not comply with this vision will find themselves disappearing or training mere pet care technicians. The vision supported by the CIESS corresponds to the agenda exported by the dominant powers. According to this agenda, countries on the peripheries of power can no longer, unlike the dominant countries, develop national programs, exercise sovereignty, or, in fact, implement any alternatives to absorption into the global market. Post-secondary educational institutions do have the ability to play a key role in creating perspectives and professionals who can take the full complexity of rural Mexico into account. Using their knowledge of the historical potential of its peasants and indigenous peoples, and its capacity for generating currents of opinion that support national projects in this new context. It will, however, be difficult for them to do so if, through evaluations, they are to remain subject to the dominant vision of the CIEES.